´óÏó´«Ã½

My experience as a youngster, when the war started, was everyone was
shocked . We never thought there would ever be a war.
At the beginning of the 1940s the Blitz happened on Merseyside. During
March and May 1941 a lot of Birkenhead was bombed. King George V and
Queen Elizabeth came to visit the area to see what damage was done. The
people of Merseyside endured a lot, but the spirit was high.
I had three older brothers and two brothers-in laws who were in the navy.
I was in the army and so was my eldest brother.
My two brothers and brothers-in-laws were in the Battle of the Atlantic and
also the Russian Convoy.
Harry, one of my brothers, was torpedoed and adrift off Nova Scotia, for
eleven days. He was sighted and taken to a naval hospital in Norfolk Virginia.
From there, after his discharge, he went on another ship in America and carried
on with the merchant service until the war ended in 1945.
He came home to Liverpool and went to the Seaman’s Pool Office. When
they saw his discharge book they stamped it ‘unfit for war service’. After what
he had gone through he was very upset. He decided to study in libraries,
especially about the commercial service. He joined the seaman’s union to get
a fair deal for the services in the merchant navy.
I joined up in 1944, as soon as I was old enough, with the King’s Home
Royal Regiment. I was based, for training, in Glasgow at Maryhill Barracks.
After six weeks I moved down to Carlisle where I did twelve weeks infantry
Training at Durham Hill camp. When that was completed I was moved down to
Lancaster where I did five weeks battalion training.
From there I was shipped abroad to Malta and went into action with the
24th Guard Brigade, 56th London Division (Black Cats). We went to Italy from
Malta by landing craft.
In Italy, we were going out on night patrols. In early May 1945 we were dug
in. I was number one on a Bren gun and my mate was number two gun. As it
was breaking dawn we thought that we were going to be attacked, but it turned
out that the enemy were surrendering to us. When they came to us there were
droves of them. They did not want anymore war.
Later, we moved on to civvy billets. The company battalion split up. My B
Company was in Trento. C company was in Padua and the other companies
where in Bolzano. We were on duty at Milan Square and a riot broke out. What
we had thought was a riot was actually the partisans bringing the bodies of
Mussolini, his mistress and his associates to be hanged, upside down, in the
square and the civilians started stoning them despite the fact that they were
already well dead.
The partisans took their bodies away. We had no idea what happened to
them.
At the end of 1945 the battalion was brought together. Our duties were to guard against looting along the railways and docks. I was in Trieste again guarding
against looting because 1948 started the Cold War. I went home in 1952.

'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.